New, cannot find reverse

Hi all, I am new here. Just purchased a quite solid SWB S3 county, galv.chassis, with 2.3D and overdrive. Really pleased. Worklist: new exhaust (finished yesterday), passenger footwell, cosmetics, bring back to Russell brown with county stripes.
I am having trouble finding the reverse gear location. It does not seem to find the slot and only after long trying it easily slides in the left direction. Force does not help. The gear stick is pretty loose anyway and rattles. I expect this to be normal and accepted from new. Finding all other gears are no problem and overdrive works fine.
It can be quite embarrassing when blocking the road for several minutes, trying to find reverse. Is there an easy fix for this problem? Thanks for any reaction.

Could be a missing or tired indent spring.

Selector shafts look like...



and the indent springs hold the shafts in place.



Without them the shaft can wander about throwing the slot out of line.

Reverse is the right hand shaft

Reverse also has the switch gubbins on it which could need freeing up/adjusting

Thanks Blue Beasty,
I have ordered couple of balls, plungers and springs and I will open the top.
Rob

Rob SWBcounty83 said:

Thanks Blue Beasty,
I have ordered couple of balls, plungers and springs and I will open the top.
Rob

Click to expand...

I've you take of the tunnel and gearstick bracket it will probably be obvious what the problem is.

If you do take the top cover off you ideally need to remove the springs and balls first especially the one in the top to middle shaft else they drop into the box.

Don't ask me how I know

Well, it was even a lot more simple than suggested in the comments. The lock nut on the slope adjustable reverse hinge had come loose. Resetting the height and locking solved the problem.
It is very pleasant when one finds out that the gearbox does not need refurbishing yet, but that a tiny loosened nut is responsible for of all fears.
In any case: Thanks for your contributions.